


grieve, rinse, repeat

by Dandybear



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Cancer, Character Death, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, Natasha Romanov is a Flirt, Picks the Het WASP-y Parts Out of Canon: EW, Roma Wanda Maximoff, Rotating POV, Written Around Episode 4 & 5, i take a hammer and i fix the canon, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29259981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: what power does a god have before death?A set of interconnected character pieces filling in the gaps between Infinity War, Endgame, and WandaVision. How grief passes hands.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers & Natasha Romanov, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Clint Barton/Laura Barton/Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104





	grieve, rinse, repeat

**Author's Note:**

> Had to get this out before Marvel no homo'd Carol/Maria in canon. (glances at my existing Carol/Maria WIP) Listen,,, I have many failings...
> 
> However, I did want to give all these ladies room to have feelings and thoughts about their own mortality, or lack thereof. And, since Maria and Wanda are foils in WandaVision, I thought it'd pair well together, but damn does this have a similar tonal whiplash. 
> 
> (Gestures vaguely to fic) Uhhh wamen? Communicating with each other? Having room for complicated and messy feelings? Bon appetit?

**Nat.**

Sometimes Nat wonders if this is what the musicians on the Titanic felt like? Continuing because, what else is there to do?

Carol’s late to the meeting. Unexpectedly dressed in jeans and a faded Suzi Quatro T-shirt under a leather jacket. The least formal Nat’s ever seen her. The clothes are almost enough of a distraction to prevent her from spotting the flash of a wedding ring and some hastily cleaned up tears.

Which is interesting. Carol’s always kept the rest of them at arm’s length. She doesn’t exactly stick around to chat. And, Nat could look into it. She could dig through Fury’s encrypted files, or search the catacombs of US Air Force records for a classified photograph. It would be a fun way to spend a weekend. Maybe she’s lost her interest. What’s the point of spycraft and subterfuge when the world’s ended?

It seems spycraft isn’t even needed, because Captain Cold Professionalism sticks around after. To steal a beer from the fridge and shred the label as she drinks it. Watching the sunset.

“You good?” Nat asks, holding her own beer without much desire to drink it.

Carol moves her face, but not her head, “You know, I’ve been across the universe, and there’s still nothing quite as beautiful as that flash of green when the sun sets.”

Nat doesn’t say anything. You learn more from letting people speak than from speaking.

“No place like home, right? I was out there for so long that I wasn’t here when I needed to be. Missed out on a lot. Missed--” she exhales through her nose. Her hand clenches, making the skin around her ring turn white.

“Who’d you lose?” Nat finally asks.

Carol makes eye contact with the railing before flicking her eyes to Nat, “My daughter.”

“Shit,” Nat says on an exhale.

Carol’s head swings downward and she combs her free hand through her hair, “And, my wife’s cancer just came back.”

Titanic.

It’s not her, but she’s watching someone else collapsing under the ice, and it’s not her, but it is her. Everything that’s happening is happening to all of them. And, it’s happening to none of them. It’s hard to keep caring, when everything is so terrible all the time. It’s easy to slip into the deep end of despair. So, violins or something.

“I think you need something stronger for that,” she says.

Tony’s good liquor is stashed under lock and key--like he can’t break it out himself. She supposes it’s the emotional block he needs. The reminder not to fill that cup.

He hasn’t, to his credit. Which is more than she can boast with herself. She smoked her stash of Russian cigarettes in the first month, now she’s got the smell of Marlboro clinging to her.

“What’s your poison?” Nat asks, placing bottle after bottle onto the counter.

“Tequila,” Carol says into the palm of her hand. 

“Mixed with anything?”

“Just ice.”

“Jesus, hardcore.”

She pours a glass and slides it across the counter to Carol’s hand. She surveys the brown eyes circling the rim and the sag of shoulders.

“So, how do you know Fury?” Nat asks, circling to the most safe topic of discussion. It does get a quirk of the lips. She catches Steve standing in the doorway frozen between his interest and his desire to give them privacy.

“He was the agent called in when I crash landed on Earth. Back in the nineties. He helped me un-jog some memories, we saved the world,” she shrugs. True, that really is no big deal in the scheme of reality now.

“Tell me something about him no one else knows,” Nat tries to pry.

Carol smirks, sipping the mixture of tequila and ice without so much as a wince, “He loves cats.”

The drink gets left half full as Carol slips off the seat, “‘s getting late and I told the Missus I’d only be out for a bit.”

“I’d say safe journey, but--”

“Yeah, not a lot that can hurt me, at least physically,” Carol says.

* * *

**Carol.**

(What power does a god have before death?)

It all kind of falls away with the tick of the clock.

When Maria was first diagnosed they discussed it on the phone.

Words like:  _ “Not a big deal,” “High rate of full recovery,” “Good that we caught it so early,”  _ are thrown around. 

She feels like a piece of shit for not coming right away. She can lift a Cree Warship over her head and people conquer cancer every day. If Maria can handle it, then Carol’s going to save this one settlement first.

She still goes home. Still helps with the bills, and mentions none-too-subtly that some  _ grandchildren  _ would be nice. While they’re both still here.

And Monica tells her that she won’t be emotionally manipulated into slowing her career trajectory down.

“They don’t have to come out of you. I won’t ask questions where they’re from,” Carol says.

Routine becomes: mornings bringing Maria coffee, trips to the hospital for chemo and surgery. Carol’s there, holding Maria’s hand, and telling her she looks gorgeous even with the thin frame and the hair loss. Because, that’s what you’re supposed to do when your wife gets cancer.

Duty and family are the two forces at war within her. She can be home. She wants to be home. But, the calls from the frontier become desperate. The mobilization of Thanos’s forces. Entire planets being crushed under his boot. Captain Marvel is needed, and Maria is recovering.

“Go, save the day,” her wife says with a kiss.

Carol still looks back, still sees the shaded anger in her daughter’s eyes as enters the atmosphere.

She’ll come back as soon as possible. Which, it turns out, is right after seeing half the children in the school she just saved turn into dust.

Her own child is turned into dust.

Little Lieutenant Trouble, who’ll always have the smile with the most mischief. The grown woman who still steals the bacon off her plate. 

Dusted.

Carol’s rush home was fueled by that sinking feeling in the gut. That deep, deep  _ something’s wrong _ . Even before the pager message from Fury. The first place she touches down is home. The floorboards creak under foot as she searches the house, finding nothing but a note from Maria:

Hospital. Weds. 1PM.

Which is where she finds her, alone and cancer free.

“Clean bill of health,” Maria manages to creak out.

The shock is too fresh, too hard to cry for.

It’s not until later, after the “Avengers” and rescuing the industrialist from space, after taking a bath with Maria. When they’re on the porch watching the golden hour turn grey.

“Go ahead and say it,” Carol says to Maria’s understanding eyes.

“No,” she sips her coffee with loud satisfaction.

“I want you to say it.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get that satisfaction. Flog yourself. I ain’t gonna do it.”

“I should have been here.”

“You should have. What the fuck was more important than Earth getting invaded?”

A flotilla of refugees about to be eaten by a space squid with a body the size of a nebula. But, the reason doesn’t matter.

“Nothing,” Carol scrubs a hand across her face, “I should have been here with you and Moni.”

“No shit. But, I know damn well you and Fury’s little band of nerds are gonna work your asses off to get her back. Because snapped doesn’t mean gone it just means….”

Carol tilts her head and watches the conviction in her wife’s shoulders, in the sigh through her teeth.

“Somewhere else,” is how Maria finishes.

Carol brushes a hand over Maria’s neck to draw her gaze, feeling the tears hot behind her eyes, “You really never give up faith on us, do you?”

Maria’s smile is watery, “Listen, God gave me the gift of knowing. And, I’ve known that little girl since she was a sea monkey, I’d know if she was gone for good. She’ll come back. She’s like you that way.”

They cling to each other, rocking from side to side with the weight of the dizzying loss. It’s almost as if letting go is letting the downpour take them.

So, they don’t.

And Carol doesn’t leave. Not for longer than a day, to chase leads on reversing the blip.

It’s good, and it’s nice. Like the peaceful twilight years of Monica’s schooling. Sometimes they can even pretend they’re just empty nesters enjoying old people activities without the kid around. Evenings are for dancing in the living room. Weekends are for old cars and planes. Carol brings Maria lunch at S.W.O.R.D, getting something of a kick from being seen as this legendary figure when she just feels like Mrs. Rambeau. 

Check up number six is when they find it.

_ “Increased exposure to radiation _ ,” and,  _ “missed some cells,”  _ and,  _ “spread to the lymph _ ” get thrown around.

Carol holds Maria’s hand the whole time the doctor hands them the death sentence.

A month maybe. More, but with the condition of chemo and surgery, and painful nights, and humiliating mornings, and Carol’s ready to take it.

“I can do a month. If it’s a good month,” Maria says when she gets home.

“Okay,” Carol says while she thinks of all the places they can go in the galaxy. Gene therapy. Cell regeneration. Microscopic lasers that can remove the damaged cells.

Then she says she needs to pick some things up from the store, but flies to a point in the sky where she can go full supernova with her grief.

And then she sees the fucking pager message for the Avengers meeting and with a sigh, heads to their stupid little clubhouse instead of home. To her wife. Who is dying.

There’s a petty rage roiling in her gut. One looking for a fair target. Someone to take down a notch. To remind of how useless and worthless they all are without Fury at the helm.

Instead, she ends up spilling her guts to Natasha Romanov.

“Well, I owe Cap twenty bucks,” Nat says after a lull.

“Over what?”

Nat motions to the ring.

Carol feels a sneer forming and keeps her voice light, “What, thought I was in to dudes?”

Nat scrunches her face up, “No. I thought you were gay and a bit of a player. He bet there was a Missus Marvel somewhere.”

“Good man.”

“Yeah, he is.”

* * *

**Maria.**

The meditation app tells her that she has to be still. To focus on her breathing, and on the stretch of her body.

It’s the focusing on the breathing part that she struggles with. Because there’s only a set number of breaths left, and she’d like to be spending them doing things other than listening to a peppy Australian woman prepare her for death.

There’s a date circled on the calendar. Like, they need to know what constitutes as a month. It’s ugly and garish and final.

They had a laugh about it. They have to laugh about it. What else is there to do?

There’s chairs on the Titanic still, and there’s music, so they’ll dance until they get tired. Then they’ll sit and watch the water rise.

Carol decides now is the perfect time to learn how to cook every egg dish. Because Maria likes eggs, and because Carol’s trying not to lose her mind in the face of a problem she can’t punch.

Her scrambled eggs have always been a staple, but then she gets into Gordon Ramsay and starts doing fancy scrambles with creme fraiche and goat butter, and  _ it is ridiculous _ . Her poached is fine. It’s hard to fuck up a poached egg. The Japanese omelette is a crowd pleaser, but Maria’s favourite is the smoked salmon quiche. So, Carol makes it every week without fuss. 

“Thirty years together is more than a lot of people get,” Maria tells Carol when the rain skates past the windows, keeping them indoors and in bed for the day.

“Mmhm, except I was here for like a third of it.”

“Ten years then. Still more than my mom’s first marriage.”

“My mom left my dad after five,” Carol sighs, putting the book away to focus on Maria.

“I’m so used to wondering if it’s gonna be the last time I see you that it feels weird being on the opposite end,” Maria admits.

After all, what good are secrets in the end? She’s not a mystery, she doesn’t want to leave stones unturned.

“What’s your advice for being in my position then? What do you usually do when you’re wondering if you’re ever gonna see me again?” Carol’s voice is dry.

Maria brushes her knuckles against her wife’s cheek, “I make a list … of all the things I think I’m gonna forget. Of what I’ll miss without knowing I’m missing it.”

“Like?”

“Like that stupid face you make when you’re really proud of a joke you’re about to tell. Or how you hug me after doing the dishes because you know I hate the wet spot on your shirt. That little happy hum you make.”

“Gotcha,” Carol purses her lips to exhale through, “Fuck.”

“Baby,” Maria says, “People have been living and dying long before me, and they’ll keep doing it after me.”

“You were supposed to be exception,” Carol gathers Maria up in her arms.

“Yeah, sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m gonna miss,” Carol’s eyes comb Maria and she wipes an errant eyelash off her cheek, “Your endless faith in me.” She presses her head to Maria’s chest and sighs, “The way you tug me around by my pockets. Your handwriting.”

“My handwriting?”

“Mmhm. It’s sexy,” Carol’s laugh rumbles through both of them, “When we were in basic, I had such a crush on you that I kept the note you wrote me after class, the one where you left your number so we could carpool. And, I didn’t even need to carpool, but I said yes because I’d never gotten a number from a girl before.”

Maria laughs wetly and kisses the top of her head, “Sap.”

“Remember when we used to lift the LT up together when we went for walks?”

“Yeah, wish she could always be that small.”

“Mm, wish I could have a do-over and be there for all of it.”

“You were. Even when you weren’t.”

They fall into the comfortable silence of reminiscing. Thinking of a way to keep in this moment forever. It stretches until it breaks, with the wetting of Carol’s lips.

“Maria, there are treatments out there… we could take the ship--”

A sigh. “Carol, I’m not dying anywhere but Earth, let alone in some alien vet clinic.”

“I wouldn’t take you to an alien veterinarian.”

Maria cocks a brow.

“Look, they have great medicine!”

“What if Moni comes back and we’re not here? She’s gonna be so scared and confused.”

“Then we’ll come back and meet her then.”

“What if we don’t come back?”

“Maria, we could be there and back in a week.”

“What if I don’t have that long?”

“What if you do? Do you think Monica would forgive me if I didn’t do everything in my power to save you? Especially since it’s--”

“Carol, it’s not your fault.”

“ _ Increased exposure to radiation _ , Maria. I wonder how that happened,” she raises a glowing fist for emphasis.

“I’ve been working with experimental engines my whole life. Your glowing pussy isn’t what’s killing me. Drop the martyr complex.”

“You drop the martyr complex!” Carol huffs.

Maria grabs her hand and kisses it, “I will if you will, okay?”

Carol sighs, “It’s not fair. I was supposed to be the one to die first.”

Maria sighs, “Baby, you already did.”

* * *

**Wanda.**

(What power does a god have before death?)

It’s five years too late for tahora and tachrichim. But, upon reflection, she realizes that Pietro is the only loved one she’s had the chance to bathe. To wrap in white and say prayers over. The pieces of her parents didn’t keep long after the bomb. She was disintegrated moments after the light was taken from Vision’s eyes.

Five years ago.

Too long ago for shiva, or sheloshim, or even aveilut. Her week of mourning began three days ago. She’s not at a month, or a year.

There’s daisies on his grave, and her grief is so fresh.

The Rabbi looks to her with understanding when she fumbles through explanations about the date of death and her own recent return to a corporeal form.

“We’ll speak his name at service,” he tells her with a gentle hand.

She hasn’t been in a synagogue in…. Not since Pietro.

_ “It brings you comfort?” Vision asks. _

_ She moves her head in irritation as he sits up, taking away her resting spot. Once he’s satisfied with the light and the curtains he settles back down and she presses her ear to his chest with some force. _

_ “It’s a home for me,” she says. _

_ “Being Jewish or religion in general?” he asks. _

_ He’s supposed to have this massive brain but he asks the most ignorant questions sometimes. _

_ “Being Jewish. Being Roma. They’re what I have left of who I am and where I’m from.” _

_ He listens with that detached intensity, a knuckle brushing her arm. _

_ “In lieu of a family you are left with your culture.” _

_ “My culture is my family now,” she says with irritation. The clarity startles her. Yes, she has others--Clint, Vision, Natasha, but they aren’t family. Aren’t even trying to be replacements. Except Vis. It’s different though. A lover, not a brother or sister. _

_ “Would you pass that on to children?” he asks. _

_ She turns to look at him, “You thinking of kids already, Vis? I hate to break it to you but--” she looks down at his admittedly different package. _

_ “I’m well aware that my hardware doesn’t support the same function. I’m just curious. Humanity reproduces not just sexually but through memetic mutation.” _

_ “Did you just call my culture a meme?” _

_ If he could blush he would, “N-no, just that even without sex, one can pass on traits. Not just parents and children but lovers, friends.” _

_ “Yes. I would. I’d raise my children Jewish, and I’d raise them Roma.” _

_ “Cultural assimilation is common in America. The term used is ‘the melting pot’.” _

_ “Yeah, well I’m not American so fuck the melting pot.”  _

She sleepwalks through the twenty-four hour CVS in search of a purpose, or maybe just a coke when she finds herself looking at bereavement cards in the greeting card aisle. She snorts at the third one that mentions something about being carried by Jesus and wonders how Hallmark is scrambling to come up with some kind of card for returning from non-existence.

She pays with a black credit card. One that doesn’t even have an expiry date. There’s an irony, she guesses, to Tony expiring before the cards he gave them did.

It’s warmer outside than in the air conditioned store. The balmy air sticks to her skin. A blue glow leads her eyes to an employee, staring at her phone while she exhales candy scented clouds. 

_ “I’d say this is my only vice, but it’s definitely not,” Nat says, producing a box of Belomorkanal cigarettes from her jacket pocket. Leather jacket, adidas pants, socks, and sandals in the dead of New York winter. Wanda likes her best like this. She likes to think she’s one of the few people who gets to see Natasha in her most Slavic skin. Relaxed. She thinks. She knows Natasha is a chameleon, one who shifts reality through attitude and dress. Perhaps she’s just projecting what Wanda wants to see. The version of Natasha she might have shared a smoke with on campus, or at a party. An older girl with coloured hair and pouty lips who Wanda would have looked up to. Not shyly, she doesn’t do shy. She’d probably have elbowed her way into Natasha’s life forcefully. _

_ Instead, Wanda fingers the blue and white box, remembering the cartons from her mother’s purse. _

_ “Want one?” Nat offers, with the long paper stem between her teeth. _

_ Wanda shakes her head and takes one anyway. Natasha tips her head forward, cupping the space between their cheeks with her hand to press the cherries of their cigarettes together. It’s unnecessary and flirtatious, and very Natasha. Wanda doesn’t react, because that’s very Wanda of her. She exhales smoke through her nose and tries not to cough. Stoicism is betrayed by watering eyes and a cleared throat.  _

_ “Shut up,” she gasps. _

_ “Hey, they’re like, the strongest cigarettes in the world. No shame.” _

_ Wanda spits. Bitter burnt tobacco still coats the inside of her nose and throat.  _

_ “I actually preferred Laikas but they got discontinued when the Bloc fell,” Nat says. _

_ “I don’t remember the Bloc itself, just the architecture. The big,” Wanda gestures, not unlike her powers, with the cigarette between two fingers, “Concrete fitness centres with the Soviet art. My mother used to take me and Pietro for swim lessons.” _

_ “Yeah, we had one in my home town. They knocked it down in ‘09 to put up some condos, but the construction money fell through and now it’s just a half-finished building that no one can use.” _

_ “Should keep that in mind if we need to fight anything in the future,” Wanda jokes. Nat wrinkles her nose at her and waves lazily to the approaching Clint. _

_ “Thought you quit,” he says, sticking his hands under his armpits. He’s got a fresh hair cut that Nat roughly shoves her palm against.  _

_ “I can quit any time I like. You’re the one with the addictive personality,” she fires back. _

_ It always feels like an intrusion being around them when they’re like this. Nat puffing her lips to coil smoke through the air into Clint’s open mouth. _

_ “If you get me itching again Laura’s gonna make you sleep on the couch next time you’re over,” he says. _

_ “Mm, you maybe, but not me,” there’s that bratty persona again. Wanda dips her face into her scarf, letting the smoke between her fingers burn out. _

_ “You okay, Kiddo?” Clint asks her. _

_ She makes sure to flash the bright smile when she nods. _

Fresh tears stick to her cheeks and she doesn’t have the embarrassment to clean them off. Who’s gonna judge her? Who’s gonna care? Half the population is sleepwalking into broken lives. Marriages turned into second marriages. Children grew up. People died. Life moved on, and now she’s among those left in the dust.

Dust.

She understands the ‘man out of time’ feelings of Steve better than ever, except now he’s back in his time and old in theirs. Tony’s dead, Nat’s dead, Steve’s retired, Clint’s out of commission, Thor’s in space, Rhodey and Sam are alive, that just leaves her and--

No. He’s dead too.

She’s living out of a motel in Poughkeepsie. Clint extended the invitation to stay with him and his, but she can see the years have weighed on him. The ache of missing them. So, she’s politely declined. She considers taking up wandering. Buying an RV and just … finding America, maybe home along the way. 

It’s a distant future idea for distant future Wanda. Present Wanda only has the energy for snack runs and changing channels. She plays upbeat and coping for Clint on their weekly calls. She lies about all the things she’s doing. She makes it a little game, twisting the plot of whatever episode of this-or-that is on into the events of her week. So much can happen in a thirty minute time slot. He’s none the wiser.

* * *

**Maria Part 2.**

A month comes and goes. Then two. Three. 

On month four, when the hope is setting in, that’s when things like walking and eating get hard. The muscles in her throat won’t pull the food down, and then it’s liquid everything. Coughing up despite the straw, and Carol there every day, mopping her mouth, and changing her sheets.

“Too late to take me to that alien vet?” she jokes on a grey morning.

It backfires. Carol’s smile turns to tears and she crumples.

Words like  _ stubborn _ , and  _ martyr _ are said into her hair. 

It doesn’t stop her from asking, and it doesn’t stop Carol from agreeing. As far as last wishes go, it’s nothing to a god, and everything to them.

She feels her hands shake with fear as she tightens them around Carol’s shoulders. Then the ground shrinks with the speed they ascend.

“Don’t let go,” Carol says against the wind.

She doesn’t. Her fingers squeak on that soft brown leather. The same jacket Carol wore on their first date, and their first fight, and so many other firsts.

Now it’s here for their last. Flying together was always a private language. Regular pair of birds the two of them. Mated for life. Locked in an endless dance in the sky. The air’s getting thinner and her heart is beginning to race. It’s just as giddy as that first flight.

Harder, faster, further. 

* * *

**Carol Part 2.**

He looks like that weird purple nugget from the McDonalds ads. It’s a bizarre thought to be having about the man who took everything she--and the remaining half of the universe--ever loved. Purple thumb-looking fucker flinches in fear when he realizes that not only is she capable of kicking his ass a second time, but that she intends to. With great prejudice.  


There’s also a line forming behind her. Starting with the pissed off redhead. 

And, really, Carol hates to jump the line, but this asshole is the reason she spent the past five years missing her little girl. He’s also the reason she’s spent the past two years missing her wife. Without the man in front of her she’d have both in her arms right now, and probably be watching one of Maria’s weird sports (like golf or fencing). 

She doesn’t need to say it as she cracks her own skull against his. He knows that he’s the cause of a universal loss.

So, yeah, hitting him feels really good.

Asshole.

* * *

**Wanda Part 2.**

Jan Brady is psychotic.

That’s her working theory.

Her second theory is that there are too many channels and nothing on. But, that’s America. Empty excess. 

She’s aware of her own participation as she clutches the giant jar of puffed cheese balls. She doesn’t even like these. They’re stale, empty calories. Her shopping trips have been fugue states, grabbing whatever catches her eye and then paying for the consequences after. If she were in a productive depressive spiral she’d at least cook for herself. The boxes of takeout stack faster than the cleaners can come, and it’s not like she’s trying to fool the staff here. What’s the point of projecting an image of excellence or success? She could. With her powers. She could and it would be easy. Wanda wants to be seen, she thinks. 

She could be watching something profound, or at the very least modern. Instead, she’s glued to the classic sitcom channel. Twenty-four hour programming, no need to surf. She can just sit and absorb Lucy, Mork & Mindy, M*A*S*H, and Happy Days.

Alone in her room, she mimics the American accent through time. It’s old hat, being how she learned English. Old reruns of Full House playing through static in the morning.

She catches cheese balls with her mouth. She perfects her Shirley MacLaine impression. She makes herself laugh. All by herself.

Sleep only comes when she’s in between spaces. The sleepy morning hours of Golden Girls, where she leaves the TV on for company so she doesn’t see dead faces when she closes her eyes.

“Vision was funny,” she says aloud, “Most people don’t know that about him. He could always make me laugh.”

The room listens indifferently, like the psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressants and sleeping pills.

“We had this whole running joke where we’d pretend to be people on an infomercial who couldn’t do basic tasks.”

She laughs to herself, “Once he deliberately got stuck in the diving board just to freak everyone out.”

She sleeps. She dreams. Of canned laughter, and of slapstick gags between her and the gangly man who wanted to offer her forever.

* * *

**Monica.**

Her mother is dead.

Her mother had a full three more years, and then she died. And, Monica wasn’t there to wash her, or listen to her, or to say goodbye.

Now, she’s the one looking at the Maryland ranch her mother left her. The horses were sold off. The carcasses of planes and cars stay, signs that Carol still haunts the place when she’s on planet.

She can’t even express the anger she has. At her mother? Or at Carol? Or is it at herself?

God maybe?

Circumstances definitely.

“She never lost faith,” Carol says over cheeseburgers eaten out of a bag. The kind of ‘cool mom’ meal that delighted Monica at age ten. Now, it just feels like a minimum effort. Like everything Carol does. The bare minimum. Soggy burgers and cold fries all while staring at the nearest body of water. It constitutes as a conversation in some universe, she supposes.

“Left you a lot to inherit, of course, you’ll get everything when I--” Carol pauses.

Monica finishes for her, “Can you even die?”

“Anything can die and everything does,” Carol says, sounding more like Mom when she says it.

Monica eats a fry.

* * *

**Wanda Part 3.**

The problem with powers like hers is that it’s very difficult to tell when she’s losing her fucking mind.

The grey static of the grey sitcom turns to grey security footage. It’s enough to get her to set down the tub of ice cream, chewing thoughtfully as she sees through the grain.

She reaches for the remote, pressing the numbers experimentally.

**“Don’t touch that dial now!”** a cheery woman’s voice commands.

Her first thought is that it’s the security system giving her feed from outside. But, it’s interior footage. Abstract shapes in the forms of humans, assembling or disassembling something.

Words without subtitles bleed in and out. Words like:  _ “optimized core processing”  _ and  _ “speedy configuration”  _ and  _ “plasma beam could be used to upgrade current canon technology.” _

It’s  **his head** that tips her off.

That grey shape is his torso, and that grey shape is a leg. That red shape used to be Father’s arm. That grey shape used to be Mother’s legs. The desecration of the Earthly body by dismemberment. By bomb. By cutting and peeling away wires and filaments.

It breaks something in her brain.

He wanted this. He wanted his body donated to science to be used to help humanity. To forward it.

_ “I was born a weapon, please don’t let me die as one,”  _ he said to her once.

Plasma canons made out of his head(she’s looking into his eyes as she focuses on the yellow gem in his head)(hisheadhisheadohgodThanosispullingthestoneout) is not for the betterment of humankind.

It’s not premeditated. The drive. Or the storming of the facility. Really, she only seems to come back to her senses outside of the burger shack she stopped for lunch at.

How does one not look psychotic when ferrying the dismembered corpse of one’s robotic lover in the front seat?

She supposes that his red-purple body makes it all less horrific. Much easier to digest the body as some convention prop or art piece.

The bigger question remains: what the hell is she doing?

Premeditation would have helped. She thinks, absently, as she chews a fry. It’s actionable. It’s exciting. A big mid-season plot twist. Wanda leaves the safe confines of her motel to commit … theft? Kidnapping? Whatever crime this settles into. She’s here now.

Vision’s here now. Parts and all.

_ Maybe,  _ the therapist in her mind (played by TV’s Kelsey Grammar) says,  _ reconstruction Vision and performing a proper burial will help your grieving process _ .

And, that seems like a good idea. A necessary idea. A sane and respectful idea. If S.W.O.R.D plans to misuse Vision’s remains then she’ll put him to rest herself. Maybe then she’ll be able to rest.

It’s an accident really.

His pieces snap back together like Legos and then he’s there, lying on a motel bed for her to bathe him. His skin’s never felt like human skin, instead a texture closer to steel cord. It makes the cloth catch around his joints.

If she keeps his face out of sight she can pretend he’s only sleeping. That a kiss could wake him. That his face is peaceful and not in some horrific facsimile of a gasp.

**“Come on, Wanda. Give Old Blue Eyes one last kiss….”**

She looks around for the source of the voice and finds the TV on. Right. She had turned it on to mask any noises. And to fill the silence. She thinks. It’s all … fuzzy. Like static.

Still, a kiss couldn’t hurt. Not on the mouth, left slack in death. To the source of his pain. The forehead. Like a dream.

Just like a dream.

And he gasps as he wakes from his nightmare. 

She doesn’t remember a lot after that.

Or before that really.

And, isn’t that just swell?

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed it, and what you did if you did. If you didn't then please press that back button. Safe journeys!


End file.
